LabVIEW or C? Could you rephrase the question?

[ErnieH]

"We were told explicitly that we could not use LabVIEW. They did not want all of the concerns that came with LabVIEW (i.e.. Runtime engine, the look the feel and the perceived poor operation of LabVIEW)"

So, instead of asking for better tools for LabVIEW to offset these arguments, we are just going to blame the customers for noticing them and pointing them out? Maybe they have some valid points that should be addressed in future versions.

[Broken_Arrow]

Sorry for the re-post (I posted this on Breakpoint a while back) , but this is just SO applicable here.... 

[ErnieH]

Unfortunately, he will have the last laugh when your company lays off people. LabVIEW is a great language, but there is not a great demand for it in the job market. DId a search in my are for LabVIEW jobs versus C jobs. 8 to 800 in my state. The sad fact is, no matter how great it is, when you lose your job you may be unemployable if that is all you use. (not to mention the fact that you will not have it to use anymore anyway).  And if you do not use it daily, you are unlikely to bang out a program in a day like your example. Sad but true. A lot of recruiters have never even heard of LabVIEW.

[MarkCG]

That's weird, I had 3 different recruiters contact me in the past 2 weeks about LV jobs, plus another option for a gig from my current recruiter. Granted it's all contract--- but that's the way I like it. Unless you work at an integraton house, you probably won't get a very wide range of LV experience working at just one company. It's a niche market but it's quite healthy.  

[LV_Pro]

Yes, since I took myself off the contracting/consulting grid last Fall I have gotten a few queries from recruiters that weren't aware I wasn't in the contracting game now. Yes, there are a lot of C/C++/Java jobs, probably not as many doing test and measurement though. When I got into LabVIEW, particularly in the contracting arena almost 17 years ago, there were few LabVIEW positions and very few "headhunters" had heard of it. Now I am surprised to hear that a technical recruiter wouldn't have heard of it. They had better get current or they will be looking for a job themselves!

[MarkCG]

Although, I do have to say ErnieH does have a good point about addressing the criticisms--- people in the NI orbit can be sort of smug about labview and all things NI, and I see this in myself too. Having to install the run time engine is very annoying, and getting a professional look and feel definitely takes a lot of work and effort to get right and you don't have fine grained control. I personally truly hate the  "modern" theme look, with gray background, goofy "scope screen" waveform charts, toggle switches, and other pseudo 3-d skeumorphic junk. It seems very 90's to me. We all know the cliches about first impressions, but it's true-- if it looks ugly, all its flaws will be perceived more negatively than otherwise.

[ErnieH]

But if LabVIEW is so much better than C, and has been on the market for 20+ years, why is there not a huge demand for it (and programmers for it)? As far as I know, companies still like to save money when they design things. They like to do things faster and more efficiently.  Why are there not literally thousands of jobs? Why so few? I use it every day and am productive at it. Why are there not a lot more of us? That is the real question, in my opinion. I don't have a good answer for this myself. Ideally, Instead of convincing people we need to use LabVIEW for this, we should have to justify not using it.

[altenbach]

LabVIEW is still mostly limited to engineering and here LabVIEW is significantly "better", whatever that means. ;).

There are many industries where LabVIEW is is virtually absent (3D games, web, OS, etc.). For a fair comparison, you need to calibrate it to the small subset of programmers that actually work in the relevant field targeted by LabVIEW.

So, if your aim is to write small apps for android phones, don't use LabVIEW.

If you are in engineering or science, LabVIEW fits like a glove. 🙂

A lot of kids have been exposed to graphical programming as part of lego mindstorms and first robotics competition. Just wait until they join the workforce ... 😄

[Hornless.Rhino]

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@altenbach wrote:

Just wait until they join the workforce ... 😄

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We'll see pages of threads here about coding for liquid helium cooled magnetic field control units suitable for use in sub-atomic particle beam deflection?

[Intaris]

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@Hornless.Rhino wrote:

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@altenbach wrote:

Just wait until they join the workforce ... 😄

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We'll see pages of threads here about coding for liquid helium cooled magnetic field control units suitable for use in sub-atomic particle beam deflection?

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Funnily enough, that's pretty close to what we do on a daily basis.....

Shane